Transcript:
okay Cam I already introduced you but I also told them that uh you are on a time
schedule because you have to he’s the pastor at his own church and needs to go talk to them this morning so he’s pulling a double shift this morning
so uh you if any I’ve introduced you but feel free to say anything else that you want
to say about yourself and I suggest that he’s going to talk to us about one of the books that Peter left for us
go ahead cam thanks a lot for being here well let me pray I know we’ve just been doing lots of Storytelling and lots of
prayers and I’m thrilled to be uh able to listen in with you guys thanks for letting me eavesdrop but I want to pray
as we dive into a text in First Peter all right so father we bless you
um your promise is true that we’re two or three are gathered in your name you’re present and I believe that even
covers over Zoom so we know that you’re here and we’re glad for that so come and
teach us teach us these important truths that Peter learned and that we’re in the
process of learning help us Lord by your spirit work in us to transform our Wills
that we may follow you with everything we’ve got we pray this in Jesus name
amen well greetings greetings from Vancouver uh it would have been so much better for
me to be there with you in Winnipeg I grew up in Winnipeg so I know the area well I know your church I know the
neighborhood I’ve been inside your your Gathering Place and um I’m delighted so
honored and Curtis said um uh would you come and speak to our church I was more
hopeful that I would get to come there but you know because I have to preach here in Vancouver as well
um we’re gonna have to deal with zoom for today and even next week unless I say a whole bunch of heretical things
and you kick me out and I don’t get to come back next week but the plan is that I’ll finish up second part of this next
weekend greetings from the North American Baptists as well and I know in
today’s age that denominations conferences they’re not you know they’re
we don’t think about them a whole lot but there is something that God’s doing in the North American Baptist and I get
to I get to be on the executive team for the NAB so uh I bring greetings from
them as well this morning God’s doing some amazing things so the stories that you guys told this morning you know
there are churches all over the place uh in the North American Baptist telling similar kinds of stories of where we’ve
seen God at work in our lives and I do also want to greet you from our church this morning I I kind of if we’d done
this better we could have actually had the Gatherings at the same time and that
would have been so cool and just all were shipped together we’ve done that over Zoom we’ve learned some things over
zoom in the last couple of years all right well we need to start I’ve called this uh these next two talks
or today and next week live like that stole a stole a title from a group
called The Sidewalk Prophets and a song that they sing that really gets at this
question that I want to wrestle with together with you for these two weeks what difference
does Jesus make in your life you know so so often like I’ve grown up in an Evangelical family I’ve grown up
in church and all those things um but I I can’t help but say the last
number of years particularly even though I’ve been a pastor for 30 years this question is just it’s just penetrating
deep into my soul so what difference does Jesus make in your life and I think that’s the question that so many of my
neighbors that don’t know Jesus are indeed asking don’t just tell me about you know that Jesus died on the cross
for me true I got that but but how does Jesus make a difference in your life
right now so I want us to think through that as we think on this text for a
couple of weeks now I don’t know how many of you recognize this picture
um it’s easier when I’m talking on Zoom to show pictures as well that way you don’t have to look at my face for all 30
minutes or however long we go um but we actually get to you know pay attention to some of what we’re talking
about so Shelly and I Shelly’s my wife we have four kids they’re all adults they’re all
grown they’re all out of the house we don’t have to pay well I was gonna say we don’t have to pay for them
anymore but that’s not true we still pay a whole bunch of stuff for them um three girls and then a boy who’s the
youngest the three girls after they graduated from high school Shelly and I gave them a gift and the gift was that
they would go off for six months to some country in the world and go to capenry
Now cape and raise a bible school and they would get a little bit of Education they’d see the world etc etc my son
comes to graduate and I said hey Matt you know the girls got to go somewhere and go to kitchen right
um where would you like to go He says Dad I don’t want to do that I don’t want to go to the Bible school and I’m like
oh Matt come on he goes instead I would rather go to the World Cup of soccer
with you in Brazil so this is eight years ago now being a huge stalker fan i s it
didn’t take me very long to say yeah Matt that’s a great idea let’s do that so we went off we booked all the tickets
got everything all sorted out and went off to Brazil and I tell you what Brazil is one of the most amazing places I’ve
ever been particularly the city of Rio De Janeiro you probably recognize this picture
right like everybody knows Rio from Christ the Redeemer statue that’s up on the top of the sail you can see it there
in your picture looking over and guarding the city
well you might not know though that the second most popular tourist attraction
besides Christ the Redeemer statue is called Sugarloaf Mountain now it doesn’t
really look like a mountain does it you can see it in the background there out on this sort of little island out in the
middle of the ocean there that little sort of ant hill looking thing that’s Sugarloaf Mountain and what you do on
Sugarloaf Mountain is you take three different trams to get to the top and when you’re at the top there’s like an observation deck and the observation
deck looks down over the entire city it’s amazing
right down there in front of it you see the favelas and and over to the to to my
left or to the left of the picture is the downtown of Rio and there’s an airport that they’ve done sort of out in
the water and so when you’re up at the top of Sugarloaf you’re looking down on the planes that are circling and coming
in for a landing at the airport if you’re looking to the right of the picture you can’t see it here but it’s
Copacabana beach stretches for 10 miles of this most unbelievable sand and you see all of
this from the top of Sugarloaf but you don’t go up Sugarloaf to see all
that you go up Sugarloaf because it’s the best place to see Christ the
Redeemer statue you look down on everything else but you look up to the statue
well so Matt and I go up there one of the days and we go up and we’re up there there’s about 2 000 people up on this
observation deck and everybody’s crowding around the you know the the the railings and trying to get a picture but
when you know what we chose a cloudy day and so what would happen is you get
everybody at the at the railing with their camera and they’re looking up waiting for a glimpse
of this statue you know they even sort of look at it where you’d get a
a spot in the sky a space in the sky where there was a clearing and you’d think okay about five minutes and I’ll
get over here to the Statue and then I’ll be able to take a picture but of course clouds don’t work that way all the time right
so uh there we were standing at the railing looking for a glimpse of this
statue it’s the reason we went up there and I heard God speak to me
you know there are these moments in your life where you just know that God’s speaking and he says what do
you see I said nothing it’s cloudy I said I’m only getting glimpses I want more
he says isn’t that a metaphor for many Christians and the way they do their life they know there’s me there
but they only get glimpses of me throughout their life and they’re left
asking the question isn’t there more
I said Lord that’s a great metaphor it’s a great picture it’s true in my life and I know it’s true in so many other lives
we we long for a clear day when we just see you completely
but clouds get in the way and we only get these little glimpses and when we get little glimpses it’s fantastic
but we want clarity then he said there’s more
he said what about your neighbors what about your neighbors when they look at you
do they see me or do clouds get in the way of that too
because I think our neighbors friends I think they look at us sometimes and they get glimpses of Jesus and they go wow
there’s something special but so often if I’m honest
so often they look at our lives and they go is that all you know my life’s busy enough I don’t
need to go to church I don’t need to do this I don’t need to do all those things you Christians do because it doesn’t make any difference in your life
so there I was Sugarloaf Mountain looking up trying to get a glimpse of
Christ the Redeemer statue and what happens two things there’s got to be more
is that all both of those questions are important and they lead us back to the question that I’ve asked which says
so friends what difference does Jesus make in your life you know it’s true right we we get
glimpses we get glimpses of Jesus in all kinds of different things I’ve put a couple pictures on the
screen and you won’t necessarily know all of them the scenery at the bottom is the Lake District in England it’s a it’s
a place it’s a place a thin place for me a place where it feels as if Earth and
Heaven are so close every time I go there and I walk in the hills for a few days
I feel so close to the lord well that’s an example there’s probably glimpses
that you get and you could each tell stories people that you meet they go yeah I see Jesus and them are places
that you go or events that happen same thing on the other side though we each know that in our lives there are
well there are these clouds that get in the way so our neighbors ask the question you know is that all sometimes
we see people wrestling with identity issues or character issues like this guy
up in the top left is getting angry sometimes we get cloudy when we’re
uncertain about our purpose or our vocation so we get glimpses but clouds get in the
way hold on to that metaphor as we go through these two days together
there’s a famous Pastor years ago like you have to go back to the 50s and
60s um Canadian guy but he was in Chicago for quite a quite a while
Tozer and Tozer said this quote which my guess is you’ve heard before
what comes into our minds when we think about God as the most important thing about us
what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us so I want to invite you to try
this just for a second and I won’t hear all your answers so I’ll go quite quickly but you know when you
um have a look at that picture what do you see you know some people see
a candle holder right where others see two faces opposite to
each other or what about that one what do you see there you see a duck
or do you see a rabbit you can see both there can’t you and that one is a famous one you know
this one you’ve seen this before is it a young lady or an old lady and you can actually see both in that
picture and why am I saying that because if we’re trying to get a glimpse trying to get a picture of who God is it’s so
important for us to have clear lenses and be able to see everything about him
that he wants because the way we see God changes everything else if it’s cloudy
the clouds get in the way of so much we want Clarity because the way we see
God influences the way we see scripture the way we see the gospel the way we see the world even the way we see the church
or ourselves so we ask the question
like the song did live like that when they see me do they see you
all right so here’s our text finally we’re getting there First Peter chapter 2 verse 9 and we’re
going to look for literally the rest of our morning today and then all of our time next time at this one verse and
particularly three words in this verse here it is
but you’re a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation God’s
special possession that you may declare the Praises of him who called you out of Darkness
into his wonderful light
one commentator said this about this amazing text he said in relationship to
a society for which rejection of the Gospel becomes more and more characteristic
the Christians living in that Society should understand themselves as God’s
people the terms genus ethnus and layoffs are
used Side by Side in accord with Greek usage Janus characterizes a common origin
ethnos characterizes common customs and Laos a common purpose
those are the three words that I want to look at and roughly translated we’re going to look this morning at issues of
our identity and then next week at issues of character and vocation all
three of those words are crucial to what Peter says to us in First Peter chapter 2 verse 9. so let’s start in our time
together in this text literally just looking just looking at that very very first
word Janus or Guinness you you recognize it even as I say it I’m sure genus where
have you heard that before well of course it comes in the very first book of the scriptures Genesis and when you
understand that word you you get inside of it and understand it’s a it’s about a new story
we have a new father a new family and it changes our identity so when Peter
writes hey friends you’re in you’re a chosen people
he’s saying that you don’t exist in the old story anymore and and your father and family are so different so radically
shaped your identity becomes something completely different back up with me just a chapter in First Peter
go back to chapter one in verse 23 and we we read this he says for you have
been born again not of perishable seed but imperishable
speed through the living and enduring word of God what’s he saying
he’s saying Cameron I know that Bob and Brenda are your parents and you had a good story not everybody has a good
story some people have really really painful stories but Peter’s saying to me saying to you
this morning hey guess what when you become a follower of Jesus
you are born again you enter into a new story not one that
will end but one that will go on forever you know you and I don’t need biology lessons we
know how babies are made and we know how babies come out but here Peter says yeah but there’s a
better story a news story a new father one who has imperishable seed not
perishable through the living enduring word of God and we know that to be Jesus
well if we have a new father friends and it changes our identity so remember
we’re back to this question what difference does Jesus make we have to understand we have to see God
clearly no clouds getting in the way so there’s four things I want to tell you about God this morning there’s lots
more about God of course but these four are pertinent to the topic of our identity
so here’s the first God is one that’s what we know about it
one God you know the Shema Deuteronomy chapter six the Jews used to say it
three times a day it would sort of their their rhythm of prayer hear o Israel the
Lord your God the Lord is one therefore love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your mind with all your
strength with all your soul and then later gets added to it love your neighbor as yourself but there it is
hear o Israel the Lord your God the Lord is one
now what does that mean well means a couple things first of all it means god is monotheistic you know
that they were in the midst of all these different people all these different nations that were polytheistic meaning
they had lots of gods they had a god of the son the god of the Moon a god of the seasons the god of the Harvest the god
of the storms of God you know they had gods for everything but not the Jews not the Israelites not
God’s people no God says I’m different I’m one God
over all of those things but there was something else that it
meant when we read in Scripture that God is one we also know that he’s one but three
persons there’s a there’s a Unity among those three persons father son and spirit there’s the father-son and spirit
existed even before creation as one God as a community
as a trinity as a trinity a trinitarian that’s who that’s who we know God to be
and that’s so unique to our faith there’s so many things about
Christianity that’s comparable or similar to other faiths other faiths
have one God in terms of being monotheistic other other faiths have you know this idea of God coming to Earth
God dying but Christianity is unique in that we believe in one God three persons father
son and spirit in community and that’s what makes our God distinct so there’s
the first thing about God he’s one here’s the second what holds that Oneness together well
the fact that God is love I don’t know if you remember a passage in first John chapter four you could jot
it down just quickly and have a look at it later first John chapter 4 verse 7 to 12. it’s a it’s a text about who God is
and it says not just that God is loving but in verse 9 God is love that’s his
nature it’s not just that he acts in a loving way it’s his nature that he is
love so if it’s his nature he can’t be other you you can’t be
contrary to your nature so if God is love everything that he does
is love oh that’s a promise to hold on to but it’s also his action he’s also
loving and so when we know that he is love in his nature everything he does is love
but when we know that he’s loving his action we know that he is the source or the
initiator of all acts of love
God is one God is love God has created that’s the third thing we need to know
about God and that let me explain why this is so important you see one of the things about God a
word that’s used in the Greek is this fancy word called extasis or extasio and
what it means is because God in his nature is Love This Love in a sense I
want you to picture something sort of bubbling up and bubbling over This Love
that he has in community he can’t help but give it away it expands and it sort
of upward and outward into creation and so God sends his word into the world
and creates Genesis chapter 1 tells the story
obviously of creation and one of the things that’s interesting is how often
we as Christians we we try to make it into a history book or we try to make it into a science textbook it’s neither of
those two things it’s a description of who God is and he says I send my work like how is
everything created he speaks sends his word and these things are created but
one of the things that Genesis 1 says also is he has no rivals
now where do I get that well it’s kind of interesting because so many of the creation stories throughout
history have all been around this idea that the gods come together and they
have this massive battle and in the midst of that massive battle somebody
triumphs but in the midst of the massive battle chaos
is created out of order you see the picture of Liam Neeson in that movie Taken on the right hand side
of the screen why did I put that on there I don’t know if any of you’ve seen that movie or ones like it you know what
happens when the bad guys do something bad the good guy comes along we want to cheer for the good guy to do what
to actually be more violent than the bad guys you know we take care
of problems in a sense by saying violence begets violence and God came along and he says look all
these other gods all these other stories of how creation happened where chaos was
created out of order he says that’s not me I speak my word
in order is created out of Chaos in other words I have no Rivals I’m
above all of that warring of the god and then all the way through chapter one
you’ve read it before you know it he sees something what does he say that’s good
that’s good except when he comes to humans he says that’s very good
he makes us to be in His image image bears and then leaves us in charge of
being stewards of all of creation God is one God is love God is created
and God is father we could take hours just even on this you’ve read it before in passages like
Romans chapter 8 we see it throughout the gospels we see it in the life of Jesus Jesus tells the story of the
prodigal son right there’s the father waiting for this son to come home what a
beautiful beautiful story and in essence in a way our father in Heaven Sent His
Son Jesus to do the very same thing we we see God interacting as father with
Jesus in his baptism in the Transfiguration even on the cross
that what God has done is he’s loved the world so much that he sent his son into the world so that by it all people will
be redeemed and God will be glorified and he can become father
to each of us God is one God is love that love is held to get
that Oneness is held together by love and that love Bubbles up and creates and out of that creation he creates us but
not just as anything he creates us to be in relationship with him so he can be
father now we’ve only got a couple minutes left flip that all upside down because if God
is like that and we are image bearers what’s it mean for us
what about our nature you know how we often ask each other the
question who are you and we tell our stories stories of things like where we
were born where we live what job we have what about our parents all that kind of stuff right what if I said to you it’s possible it’s
the wrong question the question should just be who are you
but whose are you that’s what Peter’s getting at when he says but you’re a chosen people you have a new story you
don’t belong to the story of this world you belong to a new father
in a new family so if God is our father what does it make us
makes us his kids we become Spiritual Beings one
philosopher said it this way we’re not just humans trying to live good lives trying to be spiritual we’ve actually
come image bearers or Spiritual Beings who are learning through Jesus to be
fully human see I think we have a faulty view of ourselves sometimes we just see ourselves as human beings
trying to get ahead rather than Children of the king or we have a wrong measuring stick of
other people and we look at them and we see them through lenses that are not
about them being image bearers at all but rather about all the sickness and
the sin and all the corruptness that goes on in the world no we need to understand where his kids
and that means we’re Spiritual Beings but we’ve also become sons and daughters
remember going for a walk in the Lake District that picture I showed you right near the beginning going for a walk with one of my best
friends one day he looked at me it was about a four hour walk I was tired and he said cam are you
a son of God we’re a servant oh I knew what he was asking
he was asking are you trying to win God’s approval through what you do
or have you just learned to accept that he loves you because he made you to
be his son or his daughter we’re Spiritual Beings we’re Sons and
Daughters were image bearers let me tell you one more story that I’m
gonna I’m gonna leave it here for today and we’ll pick it up next week when when we come back together again
I was teaching this material at a at a conference maybe three or four years ago
and um I was talking about the fact that every single human being
in their mother’s womb has the Fingerprints of God on them right like
he’s he knit us together in our mother’s womb scripture says and I noticed one couple that were there
they were a little fidgety and they were sort of talking back and forth and when I finished the session they stopped in
the interrupt and they said Kemp can we go back to the point you made about image bears and that everybody has the
Fingerprints of God on them they said we lost a baby
about 18 19 weeks it was obviously very painful but when
the baby was born and we realized that I can’t remember where they said it was
born dead or it died within a few minutes they said there was something on this
baby we couldn’t figure out what it was we asked the doctor the doctor hadn’t seen
it either they said Kim you know what it looked like it honestly looked like there were
fingerprints all over this little baby
the Fingerprints of God friends we’ve got to learn that although Genesis 3 happens and we
sin and we move away from God Genesis 1 happens before Genesis 3 and every
single human being no matter what their old story is made in the image of God he
has his fingerprints all over them and now we’re invited to live into a new
story Spiritual Beings sons and daughters image bearers it’s not who you are it’s
whose you are well we’ll come back and we’ll pick up the rest of that next week let me pray for you and for the rest of
your Gathering and then you get to go and finish up our gathering here father thanks for the joy of being
together even over Zoom for the richness of this text asking now that Lord as they talk about
this a little bit that you by your spirit would continue to just press upon them the importance of knowing how much
you love us and how you make a difference in our lives you change your identity because we’re born into a new
story We bless you for our time together this morning your name we pray amen
okay well I can’t clarify anything from the back of Cam’s mind for you but
this sort of the way that we usually do things is there anything in what he was talking about that really resonated for
you that you wanna you wanna talk about it oh you have a question
rampant disagreement I was just struck by the profoundness of
of the whole idea of who we are or whose we are as opposed to Who We Are
the world seems so stuck on on who we are on on you know the whole
self-identity and and self-fulfillment and and there’s so much of of
pop culture is is devoted to himself
and and totally missing the point
um I just thought it was really profound uh very cool I I can’t wait to to listen
to this one again uh several times and just kind of dig into it yeah
I love it and it really has nothing to do with whether it feels true right
like it doesn’t yeah that’s not actually the point if you’re like well it doesn’t it doesn’t feel like it matters it feels
like I’m I’m still a mess I’m a failure I’m a reject it’s actually not even the
question but it doesn’t matter if if I feel like I’m my Father’s son
that’s that’s a fact it’s you know yeah it’s who I am it’s it’s part of of
okay for for my for my biological father for my my dad it’s it’s a fact of
biology it’s a fact of nature for my my spiritual father it’s the fact that he
chose me how cool is that right yeah you didn’t earn it it’s not like you earned
it and then you can then disqualify yourself later
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